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Typing Hebrew in Word

This may not really be a Bibleworks question directly but I was wonmdering how to type Hebrew in Word 2007. I know that I can change the font to my Hebrew font but how do you insert the vowel points where they need to be?

This may not really be a Bibleworks question directly but I was wonmdering how to type Hebrew in Word 2007. I know that I can change the font to my Hebrew font but how do you insert the vowel points where they need to be?

It may be helpful to open up BibleWorks to learn the vowel keystrokes via the keyboard map. If you're using BW8 you can go to Tools->Interface Settings->BibleWorks keyboard. Otherwise you can go to the windows start menu and select Run and type in "charmap". Basically you type in your consonant and then the vowel after it.

Biblical Hebrew using Word best practices

My day job includes using biblical Hebrew in all kinds of programs and operating systems. Here is what I recommend:

1. Always use Unicode encoding (utf-8) for your documents. For Windows XP, Vista and 7, this is the default. It's the world standard. You may have to turn on Hebrew language support from the control panel.

2. There are a bunch of fonts out there that you can use. My personal favorite is SBL Hebrew, because that font was professionally built specifically for the Hebrew Bible: http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/...SBLHebrew.aspx. You'll find not only the font, but keyboard drivers and detailed documentation.

3. If your purpose is to type biblical Hebrew words, especially with vowels and accents, then...don't! It's already been done for you! Just go to http://www.tanach.us/Tanach.xml#Home find the verse/words you want and copy and paste (or download the files to your local machine). Then you can edit the pasted text for what you want.

Also, I'm no expert on BibleWorks since I don't normally use Windows, but some one here for sure can tell you exactly how: copy and paste from BibleWorks into Word making sure your copy is using Unicode encoding for Hebrew. As I recall, there is a setting in preferences to do that.

BibleWorks, being one of the pioneers in Bible software, had (has?) older fonts before the advent of Unicode. I know they moved forward with the times, but I don't know the names of the various newer Unicode BibleWork fonts. But you need to make sure that if you are using one of those older fonts, you copy/paste using the older encoding. But I recommend against this. Windows and Word are designed for using Unicode and you'll get the best results using a Unicode Hebrew font.

I think I had the same experience some time ago as you are having now. And I forgot all the details now, but I think you might try this.

Bwhebb is alright but you have to type the words backward in your MS Word 2007, and that can be vexing. I made a keyboard layout table by first typing English alphabet QWERT, for example, and on the next line qw ert, and so on. This way you can map out all the Hebrew letters, vowel points included.

Because of the awkwardness of typing a Hebrew word backward, I decided to use Unicode Hebrew. Fortunately BW8 uses SBL Hebrew fonts, and I am now using it along with normal English in MS Word 2007.

Basically this is what to do. Go to the gray area when you open this Forum and go through “BibleWorks Customer Support FAQs” à “Troubleshooting” à “Fonts and Keyboard Issues” and read and follow “How Can I Key Hebrew Text into BibleWorks or a Word Processor?”

Now you have SBL Hebrew. It may take some trial and error before you become comfortable with it, but you have it now and you can switch back and forth between Hebrew and English in the same document with ease.